Filming Locations:

Company:

Did You Know?

Goofs:

Continuity: The quantity, type and relative size of fish caught by Gulliver in his hat on the beach in Lilliput changes between his point of view and when he drops them at the feet of the Lilliputians.See more »

Quotes:

Emperor of Lilliput:I have it! We could send him to Blefuscu and order THEM to kill him... That way he's their problem. It may not be nice, but it's legal!See more »

The special effects that let Gulliver be a giant in Lilliput and a mite in
Brobdingnag are by the reigning genius of the day, Ray Harryhausen, but
writer/director Jack Sher's 1960 film wisely uses them only in the service
of the story. They have held up quite well, in part because they were
used
with restraint to begin with and they do nothing to interrupt or distract
from the story and its points. (A minor exception could be the fight with
a
giant animated crocodile that must have been damn fun for the effects
team,
but even it is kept within reason.)

Is this a film for children or a film for adults? The too-easy answer is
that it is obviously a children's version: There is none of the trumped-up
insanity element that the dreary-but-great-looking 1996 TV movie
shoe-horned
in for cheap drama. Neither is there the despair or genuine misanthropy
of
the book.

Only Lilliput and Brobdingnag are visited. (No Laputa, Balnibari,
Luggnag,
Glubbdubdrib, Japan, or Houyhnhnms. The third world is Gulliver's own
normal-sized world.) Gulliver puts out the fire in Lilliput by spitting
wine. (In the book, the wine has been processed by Gulliver's bladder
before he douses the fire with it.) Many characters, though not all, are
all done in a cartoonish way clearly aimed at children. The travels are
framed within the added-on love story of Gulliver and his fiancée
Elizabeth.

These are good choices. Children are inherently interested in the size
contrasts. (It must add something to the experience that first they
identify with the Lilliputians but later identify with Gulliver.)
Spitting
the wine is good enough. The cartoonish-ness makes the characters less
threatening than they could have been. The love story is light and easy
to
follow, and promotes marriage.

There are even a couple of musical numbers, one a love song that Gulliver
sings. The Bernard Herrmann score is a fine complement to the film, as
you
would expect from the composer of music for the original Psycho, Citizen
Kane, Magnificent Ambersons, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Day the Earth Stood
Still,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (tv), Have Gun Will Travel (tv), Perry Mason
(tv),
Twilight Zone, Cape Fear (1962), Taxi Driver, and on and on and
on.

But Sher's script and direction have preserved some important points and
spirit from the book: The gratitude of princes is short-lived. The causes
of war can be shockingly petty. Vanity and unreason among the powerful
make
truth an early casualty in the pursuit of power. The various unpleasant
characters (and the few nice ones) actually reflect things inside all of
us.
If it's okay for an adult to be reminded of these things in a playful way
(certainly more playful than the original), then this film will amuse and
inform that adult.

And what are Gulliver and Elizabeth doing when their ball-field sized
marriage license falls over them like a tent, and King Brob, peeking under
it, is moved to say, "You're right dear. I'd better marry them at
once."

Ultimately, it has to go down in the books as a children's film, but
surely
an uncommon one: an intelligent adaptation, if abridged and lighthearted,
of
a great classic, that stands on its own for entertainment and, if you
like,
can whet your child's appetite for the book when that time
arrives.

Like the tacked-on love story, there is a tacked-on ending that suggests
that the whole thing might have been a dream. I originally found this
annoying.

These days, watching with my little girl, I find that I'm glad for the
admittedly sore-thumb reminder that the value of the story is not in
whether
those characters do or don't exist, but in what the story says about what
is
within us. As with all such points in the film, you'll have to talk with
your child a bit to be sure that it comes across, but what a pleasure - to
find a film that sparks such a discussion with your child.

Related Links

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Edit page' button will take you through a step-by-step process.